The drum in the palace had just sounded, and a hundred and eighty palace women were still laughing.

The two women standing at the front were the king of Wu’s favorite consorts. They held halberds and had just been made captains of the two companies. The man from Qi standing before them had already had the axes of execution set out, and he ordered them beheaded.

Helü, king of Wu, was watching from a high terrace. When he saw that his favorites were about to die, he was badly shaken and sent a messenger running down with an order: I already know that the general can handle troops. Without these two consorts, my food has no taste. Please do not kill them.

The man from Qi answered: I have already received my commission as general. When a general is with the army, there are commands of the ruler he does not accept.

By the time the drum sounded again, the two captains had been beheaded and displayed.

When I wrote the joint biography of Sunzi and Wu Qi, this was the scene I wrote most fully for Sun Wu. For the rest of his life, I had pitifully little to set down.

I. He Came with Thirteen Chapters

Sun Wu was a man of Qi. He came to see Helü, king of Wu, with the art of war he had written. Some books write his name with different characters; it is the same man.

This king had taken his throne himself. He had been Prince Guang. A few years earlier he hid armored men in an underground chamber, invited his cousin King Liao to drink, and had the brave Zhuan Zhu hide a dagger inside a roasted fish and stab King Liao dead at the table. His adviser Wu Zixu had fled from Chu; his father and elder brother had both been killed by King Ping of Chu. A king who had just seized his seat, a guest minister set on avenging his father, and Chu lying to the west.

Helü said to Sun Wu: I have read all thirteen of your chapters. Can you give a small trial in drilling troops?

Sun Wu said: I can.

Helü asked again: Can the trial be made with women?

Sun Wu again said: It can.

The king agreed. A hundred and eighty beautiful women were brought out of the palace and handed over to the man from Qi.

II. Left Hand, Right Hand, Heart and Back

Sun Wu divided the women into two companies, made the king’s two favorite consorts captains of one company each, and gave every woman a halberd.

He asked them: Do you know where your heart, your left hand, your right hand and your back are? The women said: We know.

Sun Wu said: When I say forward, look toward your heart. Left, look toward your left hand. Right, toward your right hand. Back, toward your back. The women said: Yes.

When the rules had been laid out, he had the axes of execution set up and repeated the orders several times over. Then he beat the drum for a turn to the right.

The women burst out laughing.

Sun Wu said: If the rules are unclear and the orders have not been made familiar, the fault is the general’s.

He went over the orders again several times and beat the drum for a turn to the left. The women laughed again.

This time Sun Wu said: If the rules are unclear and the orders not familiar, the fault is the general’s. When they are already clear and still not obeyed, the fault belongs to the officers and the soldiers.

He ordered the two captains, left and right, to be beheaded.

The first time, the man from Qi blamed no one else. He counted the fault as his own. Only the second time did he turn the blade toward the captains. The ones he meant to kill were not whichever women had laughed aloud, but the two who stood at the front and ranked highest.

III. The Messenger from the Terrace

The king watched all of this from the terrace.

When he saw that the women to be beheaded were his own favorites, he was badly shaken and hurried a messenger down with an order pleading for them.

Sun Wu did not argue with the messenger or say anything more. He answered only that he had received his commission and was with the army. Then he beheaded the two captains and displayed them.

He chose the next women in line as captains and beat the drum again. This time the women turned left and right, moved forward and back, knelt and rose, all exactly by the rule, and not one dared make a sound.

Sun Wu sent word to the king: The troops are now in order. Your Majesty may come down and look. Use them however you wish; even if you send them into water and fire, they will go.

The king said: Let the general stop and go back to his lodging. I do not wish to come down and look.

Sun Wu said: Your Majesty only likes the words of the art of war. You cannot use its substance.

Yet from this Helü knew that Sun Wu truly could handle troops, and in the end he made him a general.

I wrote the scene down as it came to me. The king on the terrace did not come down. The general below did not go up. Between them were only a messenger running up and down, and two bodies.

IV. He Said: Not Yet

In the third year of his reign, Helü sent Wu Zixu and Bo Pi with troops against Chu. They took Shu and seized two Wu princes who had earlier gone over to Chu; the Hereditary House of Taibo of Wu says they were killed.

The king wanted to press on all the way to Ying, the Chu capital.

Then General Sun Wu spoke: The people are worn out. Not yet. Wait a while.

The Wu army turned back.

In the palace, Sun Wu had refused the king’s plea. Here he held back the king’s ambition. Both times he said no to the king. A man who could kill the king’s favorites on a drill ground could also tell the king to stop after a victory.

A few years later, Nang Wa, chief minister of Chu, led an army against Wu. The Wu army met it at Yuzhang, routed it, and took the Chu town of Juchao.

In Helü’s ninth year, the king called in Wu Zixu and Sun Wu and asked: You said before that Ying could not yet be entered. What now?

The two answered: Nang Wa, the Chu commander, is greedy, and the states of Tang and Cai both resent him. If Your Majesty is set on a great campaign against Chu, you must first win over Tang and Cai.

Helü took their advice, raised the whole country’s army, and marched west with Tang and Cai. I wrote these words both in the Hereditary House of Taibo of Wu and in the biography of Wu Zixu, and in both places I set Sun Wu’s name side by side with Wu Zixu’s.

V. Boju: The Man Who Charged First

Yet the fullest account of how this great battle was won is not in my book. It is in the Zuo tradition.

That winter, the armies of Wu, Cai and Tang left their boats by the Huai, set out from Yuzhang, and faced the Chu army across the Han River. Nang Wa crossed the Han to fight, lost three engagements, and wanted to flee.

On the day gengwu of the eleventh month, the two armies drew up at Boju. Early that morning the king’s younger brother, King Fugai, went to Helü and said: Nang Wa of Chu is not humane, and none of his men are willing to die for him. If we strike him first, his troops will run, and if the main army follows, we are sure to win.

Helü refused.

King Fugai said: When it is said that a subject does what is right without waiting for orders, this is the day it means. If I die today, Chu can be entered.

He led the five thousand men under his own command straight at Nang Wa’s troops. They broke at the first blow, the Chu army fell into disorder, and Wu won a great victory. Nang Wa fled to Zheng.

The Wu army pursued. At the Qingfa River, as the Chu army was about to cross, King Fugai spoke again: Even a cornered beast will fight, so how much more a man? Wait until half of them have crossed, then strike. The Chu soldiers were cooking when the Wu army caught up. They dropped their food and ran; the Wu soldiers ate it and kept chasing, and beat them again at Yongshi. After five battles they reached Ying.

On the day jimao, King Zhao of Chu fled Ying with his younger sister. The next day, gengchen, the Wu army entered Ying.

The Zuo tradition records every turn of this battle: who proposed the plan, who attacked, who died in his chariot, who carried the king’s sister on his back as they fled. Yet in this entire passage there is no Sun Wu.

The man who charged without waiting for orders was King Fugai. The next year, while the king of Wu was still in Chu, he went home on his own and made himself king. Helü defeated him, and he fled to Chu. A commander in the field need not wait for the ruler’s order: at Boju that idea won a great victory, and in Wu it became a rebellion.

VI. He Is Not in the Zuo Tradition

Later I went back through the decades of Wu and Chu affairs in the Zuo tradition.

Wu Zixu is there. He served Wu as its envoy and advised Helü to split the army into three and send them out in turn to harass Chu until Chu was run ragged. Bo Pi is there too, as chief steward of Wu. Even Wangsun Youyu, who took a halberd blow on his back for the king of Chu, and Zhong Jian, who carried the king’s sister on his back as they fled, are named.

Only Sun Wu is missing.

Later, in the Tang dynasty, Sima Zhen, who wrote a commentary on this book of mine, added a line under the third year of the king of Wu: in the Zuozhuan this year there is only Wu Zixu’s reply, and nothing about Sun Wu.

What I wrote was that Wu, by the plans of Wu Zixu and Sun Wu, broke mighty Chu in the west, overawed Qi and Jin in the north, and subdued the people of Yue in the south. In Sun Wu’s own biography I wrote that Wu broke mighty Chu in the west, entered Ying, overawed Qi and Jin in the north, and won fame among the lords, and that Sunzi had a share in it. I said he had a share. I did not say it was all his.

VII. Doubts from the Song

More than a thousand years later, a Song scholar named Ye Shi took this gap very seriously.

He said: Of course the Zuo tradition does not record everything. But men of humble birth who rose suddenly to act, such as Ying Kaoshu, Cao Gui, Zhu Zhiwu and Zhuan Zhu, it never left out. Sun Wu’s fame is so brilliant, and yet it leaves him out? Wu Zixu and Bo Pi, his contemporaries, it records one after another. Why does it say nothing of Sun Wu alone?

He had a second reason. From the height of Zhou through the Spring and Autumn period, anyone who led troops also took part in governing the state; there was no such thing as a commander posted out on his own. Only in the Warring States did that system change. Wu may have been a barbarian state, but if Sun Wu was its great general and yet no appointed minister, and the Zuo tradition does not record him, does that make sense?

So his conclusion was that the people who speak of Sun Wu are persuaders pointing to a name at random, not fact; that the thirteen chapters were written by some recluse of the late Spring and Autumn or early Warring States; and that the story of Helü testing him with women is especially far-fetched and not to be believed.

Another Song scholar, the bibliographer Chen Zhensun, said: Everyone who talks about war takes Sun Wu as the founding master, yet Sun Wu served Helü of Wu and does not appear in the Zuozhuan, so who knows when he really lived?

Each passage appears in its author’s own book, and Ma Duanlin’s Wenxian tongkao preserves both. What they doubt is exactly the scene I wrote most fully.

VIII. Another Wu Palace in the Bamboo

Some seven or eight hundred years later, in 1972, several thousand bamboo slips came out of two Western Han tombs at Yinqueshan in Linyi, Shandong.

Among them were military writings that match the received thirteen chapters, along with several texts that had been lost. Judging by the coins found inside, the first tomb was closed in the earlier part of Emperor Wu’s reign, before I had begun to write this book.

One text, titled Meeting the King of Wu in the transcription, is badly broken; only fragments are left. In them, the king of Wu comes to Sunzi’s lodging and asks about a love of war; in the transcription, the king’s name is a restoration. Sunzi says: War is a matter of profit and harm, not something to be fond of; war is not a game either. If Your Majesty asks me in terms of fondness and play, your outside servant dares not answer.

Sunzi says the trial can be made with nobles, with commoners, or with women. The king says: I wish to use women. Sunzi says: Women cannot bear to do many things; let me use commoners instead. The king’s reply is broken off; only half a sentence remains: what is there to regret?

What follows broadly matches what I recorded: two formations; the question whether they know their right hand, left hand, heart and back; the drum to advance; the women falling into disorder and laughing; the orders given three times and repeated five, three times over, and still not followed.

There are differences too. The Sunzi of the slips makes his own driver the marshal and the man who rode beside him the officer of works. He calls the two of them in and cites two sayings from the art of war: when orders have not been given and not been heard, the fault lies with the ruler and the general; when they have been given and explained, the fault lies with the squad leaders. He cites another: in rewarding the good, start with those of low rank. The second half is broken off; the transcription restores it as: in punishing wrongdoers, start with those of high rank.

In the transcription, the broken slips also mention “thirteen chapters.”

The same tomb yielded a text called Questions of Wu. The king of Wu asks Sunzi: of the six ministerial houses dividing the land of Jin, which will fall first, and which will hold firm? Sunzi answers: the Fan and Zhonghang will fall first, the Zhi next, Han and Wei after that; the Zhao have not lost their old laws, and Jin will come to them. This dialogue got the first half right. The second half is wrong: Jin did not pass to Zhao. It was divided among the three houses of Zhao, Han and Wei.

IX. What the Slips Can Show

These slips put the story of the trial in the Wu palace back on the bookshelves of the early Han. They show that before I took up my brush, the story was already written on bamboo and circulating, and in more than one version. I did not make it up.

But that is as far as they go.

The slips are copies from the earlier Western Han, copied from older texts. They prove that people were telling this story early. They cannot prove that on that day in the Wu palace two consorts really lost their heads. The silence of the Zuo tradition is something the slips cannot fill.

Another text among the slips, called The Four Variations, explains the line from the thirteen chapters that I put into Sun Wu’s mouth. The thirteen chapters say: there are roads not to be taken, armies not to be struck, cities not to be attacked, ground not to be contested, and commands of the ruler not to be accepted. The slips read the last clause narrowly: if the ruler’s command goes against these four, it is not carried out.

In other words, in the military book, refusing the ruler’s command has a boundary. It applies only on campaign, when the command runs against the advantage of the field. The thirteen chapters also say: if by the logic of war a battle is sure to be won, you may fight even if the ruler says not to; if by that logic it cannot be won, you may refuse even if the ruler says you must.

In the story of the Wu palace, this line was used on a drill ground, and on two palace women.

X. The Story Grows in the Telling

By the Eastern Han, when Zhao Ye wrote the Annals of Wu and Yue, the story had grown longer.

In his book Sun Wu becomes a man of Wu who lived in deep seclusion, his talents unknown to the world. Wu Zixu is the one who sees them, and while talking war with the king he recommends Sun Wu seven times. The palace women grow from a hundred and eighty to three hundred, each in armor and helmet, holding sword and shield.

The women cover their mouths and laugh. Sunzi beats the drum himself and gives the orders again and again, and still they laugh. Sunzi flies into a rage: his eyes suddenly open wide, his voice is like a startled tiger, his hair stands up against his cap, and the cap strings at his neck snap. He turns to the officer of military law and asks: What does military law say? The officer answers: Beheading.

When the king has watched it all, he is not pleased at all. It is Wu Zixu who steps forward to persuade him: war is an ill-omened business and must not be tried for nothing. If Your Majesty means to punish cruel Chu and lead the realm, who but Sun Wu could cross the Huai and the Si and fight a thousand li away? Only then is the king pleased.

My book has no hair standing up beneath the cap, no seven recommendations, and no such speech from Wu Zixu below the terrace. Later tellers added these. The farther the story traveled, the wider Sun Wu’s eyes grew.

XI. All I Could Write

After this biography I wrote a few lines: everyone who talks about armies speaks of Sunzi’s thirteen chapters; the book is widely available, so I do not discuss it, and write only about what he did.

Yet of what he did, all I could write was this one scene in the Wu palace, and that one line after “broke mighty Chu in the west”: he had a share in it.

When he died, I do not know. I wrote only that more than a hundred years after Sun Wu died, there was Sun Bin. As for where he was buried, the later Yuejue shu says: the great mound outside the Wu Gate of Wu county is the tomb of Sun Wu of Qi, guest of the king of Wu, ten li from the county seat; he was skilled in the art of war.

A guest of the king of Wu. Not a minister of Wu. The point that troubled Ye Shi can be seen on this grave mound too.

Later, in the Han book catalogue, Ban Gu listed The Art of War of Sunzi of Wu in eighty-two chapters. In my time, everyone still spoke of thirteen.

Epilogue

I often think of the king of Wu on his terrace, who would not come down.

He took his throne with Zhuan Zhu’s dagger. He made war on Chu on the strength of Wu Zixu’s hatred. At Boju the man who charged first was his brother. In his story, Sun Wu is like an answer sent up from below the terrace: when a general is with the army, the ruler’s command does not always reach him.

That line can be used to stop a willful king. It can also be picked up by a man who wants to be king himself. What King Fugai said at Boju meant much the same.

That day in the Wu palace, the drum sounded three times. The first two times, the women laughed. The third time, no one made a sound. I have set this scene down as the earlier books gave it. As for why the Zuo tradition left not a single word, I cannot answer. I can only lay both records side by side here.

Sources and editorial boundaries

1. Core source: Shiji chapter 65, the joint biography of Sunzi and Wu Qi, the Sun Wu section (from “Sunzi, named Wu, was a man of Qi” to “Sunzi had a share in it”), the line “More than a hundred years after Sun Wu died there was Sun Bin,” and the Grand Historian’s closing comment, read in the Wikisource Shiji transcription and checked against the Three Commentaries in the Wikisource Shiji sanjia zhu, chapter 65. Wording was checked against the Wikisource transcription only; no modern translation was copied and no page numbers are given. The palace-drill passage (notes 4(1)–(7)) must be checked against the Zhonghua Shuju punctuated edition of the Shiji; neither the 1959 edition nor the 2013 revised edition was available here, so edition and page are still to be checked. The Wikisource reading “captains of the left and gu” is known to be faulty (note 5(9)); “the captains of the left and right” in the story awaits confirmation from the printed text. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷065 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記三家註/卷065

2. Cross-checks: Shiji chapter 31, Hereditary House of Taibo of Wu, the King Liao and Helü sections, with the Three Commentaries; Shiji chapter 66, biography of Wu Zixu, from Helü’s third year to “subdued the people of Yue,” with the Three Commentaries; Shiji chapter 130; Shiji chapter 6, Basic Annals of the First Emperor, years 17 and 19 of King Zheng of Qin, and chapter 15, Chronological Tables of the Six States, the same years; Zuozhuan, Duke Zhao years 27 and 30, Duke Ding years 2, 4 and 5, with a full search of the Duke Zhao, Ding and Ai sections, which never mention Sun Wu; the received Sunzi in thirteen chapters (Laying Plans, Attack by Stratagem, Nine Variations, Terrain); Hanshu chapter 30, Treatise on Literature; Wu Yue chunqiu chapter 4 (Zhao Ye, Eastern Han); Yuejue shu chapter 2; and Ma Duanlin’s Wenxian tongkao chapter 221 (Siku quanshu text), which preserves the comments of Ye Shi and of Chen (Chen Zhensun). All were checked for wording against Wikisource transcriptions only, not against printed editions; all are still to be checked, and no page numbers are given. Three of them must be checked in print and have not been: the Suoyin note under Helü’s third year (Zhonghua Shuju edition with the Three Commentaries), the Wu Yue chunqiu passage on the seven recommendations and the three hundred women (Zhou Shengchun’s critical edition or the Sibu congkan facsimile), and the Yuejue shu line on the great mound outside the Wu Gate (Li Bujia’s Yuejue shu jiaoshi, Zhonghua Shuju, or the Sibu congkan facsimile). Ye Shi’s words were traced to his Xixue jiyan, chapter 46, “Sunzi” entry (Siku quanshu electronic text in the Kanripo repository, KR3j0021, leaves 046-1b to 046-2a), which matches the Wenxian tongkao; the Zhonghua Shuju 1977 punctuated edition of Xixue jiyan xumu was not available, so the printed text is still to be checked. Chen Zhensun’s words were traced to his Zhizhai shulu jieti, chapter 12, military books, “Sunzi in three juan” (ctext electronic text, base edition not stated), which reads slightly differently from the Wenxian tongkao; the printed text is still to be checked. Wherever an original book could not be read in print, the quotation stands as copied in Wenxian tongkao 221, with the original still to be checked. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷031 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記三家註/卷031 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷066 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記三家註/卷066 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷130 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/春秋左氏傳/昭公 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/春秋左氏傳/定公 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/春秋左氏傳/哀公 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/孫子兵法 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/漢書/卷030 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/吳越春秋/闔閭內傳 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/越絕書/卷二 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/文獻通考_(四庫全書本)/卷221 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷006 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷015 https://www.kanripo.org/text/KR3j0021/046 https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?chapter=871821

3. Excavated texts: the bamboo slips found in 1972 in the Han tombs at Yinqueshan, Linyi, Shandong. The formal publication is Yinqueshan Hanmu zhujian, volume 1 (Beijing: Wenwu, 1985), edited by the Yinqueshan Han Tomb Bamboo Slips Editorial Group, and the first report appeared in Wenwu 1974, no. 2; neither could be read here, and both are still to be checked. All slip texts of Meeting the King of Wu, Questions of Wu and The Four Variations follow an online transcription on sinology.cn (appendix 1 of Sunzi bingfa lunzheng), not checked against the printed volume and still to be checked. Characters in brackets in that transcription are described as “the transcription reads …,” not as the official editors’ restorations, until the printed volume is checked. The story uses three such restorations: the king’s name, the second half of the saying on punishment, and “thirteen chapters.” The transcriber’s own notes and garbled passages are not used. The tomb dating is cited secondhand from Yanaka Shin’ichi, “Ginjakuzan Kankan kenkyū no genjō to kadai,” Shutsudo bunken to Shin So bunka, no. 4 (2009), pp. 29–40 (journal pagination unverified, 待核), section I(3), as posted on the research group’s website. Summarizing Wu Jiulong’s Yinqueshan Hanjian shiwen (Wenwu, 1985), it states that a three-zhu coin in Tomb 1 sets the upper limit at 140 BCE, banliang coins in both tombs set the lower limit at 118 BCE, and the Calendar for the First Year of Yuanguang in Tomb 2 sets that tomb’s upper limit at 134 BCE, so the burials fall between 134 and 118 BCE. The story says only that Tomb 1 dates from the early part of Emperor Wu’s reign. Wu Jiulong’s book was not available here and is still to be checked. http://www.sinology.cn/BOOK/3/02-lib/01-zg/03-guoxue/其他历史书籍/辑注类/孙子兵法论正/Sunzi/Sun-4-1.htm https://mcm-www.jwu.ac.jp/~skproject/about/publication/pdf/4th-4.pdf

4. Key sayings retold in plain language in the story, with their exact sources (original wording is given in the Chinese notes): the thirteen chapters and the trial with women, the hundred and eighty women, heart, hands and back, the axes and the repeated orders, “the fault is the general’s,” the king’s plea, “there are commands of the ruler he does not accept,” the women kneeling and rising by the rule, “even into water and fire,” “only likes the words,” and “Sunzi had a share in it” (Shiji 65); “The people are worn out. Not yet” (Shiji 31 and 66); Nang Wa’s greed and Tang and Cai (Shiji 66); Sima Zhen’s note that the Zuozhuan has nothing about Sun Wu in that year (Suoyin to Shiji 31; printed edition still to be checked); King Fugai’s speeches, “a cornered beast,” and his self-proclamation (Zuozhuan, Duke Ding 4 and 5); “by the plans of Wu Zixu and Sun Wu” (Shiji 66); Ye Shi and Chen Zhensun (Wenxian tongkao 221); the drill, the driver and the officer of works, the sayings on fault, reward and punishment (Meeting the King of Wu, per the sinology.cn transcription, not checked against print, still to be checked); the six houses of Jin (Questions of Wu, same transcription, still to be checked); the ruler’s command and the four variations (The Four Variations, same transcription, still to be checked; Sunzi, Nine Variations and Terrain); the seven recommendations, the three hundred women, and Sunzi’s rage (Wu Yue chunqiu); the Grand Historian’s closing comment (Shiji 65); the tomb outside the Wu Gate (Yuejue shu); eighty-two chapters (Hanshu 30).

5. Record and later memory (boundaries): (1) The palace drill appears only in the Shiji biography and the broken Yinqueshan slips, with later embellishment in the Wu Yue chunqiu. The Zuozhuan sections for Dukes Zhao, Ding and Ai never mention Sun Wu, and they credit the decisive charge at Boju to King Fugai. The story lays the three kinds of evidence side by side and does not decide whether the palace drill happened. (2) The slips show that the story, and dialogues between Sunzi and the king of Wu, were already circulating in writing before the earlier part of Emperor Wu’s reign, with details that differ from the Shiji (orders repeated three times over, the driver as marshal, the offer to use commoners instead of women). So Sima Qian did not invent it. But the slips cannot prove the event itself. (3) In Questions of Wu, the first half of the “prediction” about the six houses of Jin (the Fan and Zhonghang first, then the Zhi) matches later events. The second half says Jin would pass to Zhao, but Jin was in fact divided among Zhao, Han and Wei, and Zhao never held all of it. As for the order in which the three states later fell to Qin, the Basic Annals of the First Emperor record the capture of King An of Han in King Zheng’s 17th year and of the king of Zhao in his 19th, and the Chronological Tables agree; by the usual conversion these are 230 and 228 BCE. Han in fact fell before Zhao, so the story does not claim that Han and Wei failed to fall first. (4) Ye Shi and Chen Zhensun are cited from the Wenxian tongkao and traced to their own books in electronic texts (note 2). Ye Shi’s reasons (the Zuozhuan’s silence, the rule that commanders took part in government, the “far-fetched” trial with women) are given as he put them, without judgment. (5) Sun Wu’s origin: a man of Qi in the Shiji, “Sun Wu of Qi, guest of the king of Wu” in the Yuejue shu, a man of Wu in the Wu Yue chunqiu. (6) The capture of Shu in Helü’s third year: the biography of Wu Zixu says the two former Wu commanders were seized, the Hereditary House of Wu says they were killed; both are given. That year is 512 BCE, the same as Duke Zhao 30 in the Zuozhuan, the year the Suoyin note refers to. (7) The battle of Yuzhang falls in Helü’s sixth year in the Shiji and in Duke Ding 2 (508 BCE) in the Zuozhuan; the story says only “a few years later.” (8) Ying: battle of Boju on gengwu of the eleventh month, King Zhao fled on jimao, Wu entered Ying on gengchen (Zuozhuan, Duke Ding 4; 506 BCE); the biography of Wu Zixu also gives jimao and gengchen. (9) The Wikisource text of Shiji 65 reads “captains of the left and gu”; gu is a copying error for “right.” (10) Sun Wu’s death date and burial place are unknown. The date of the Yuejue shu is disputed (the Suoyin already doubted it), so the tomb is treated only as a later record. (11) The Hanshu’s eighty-two chapters and Sima Qian’s thirteen are set side by side without speculation on the reason. (12) Identifying the Wenxian tongkao’s “Mr. Chen” as Chen Zhensun follows the usual attribution and was checked against the Zhizhai shulu jieti text. (13) “A few years earlier” in section I is an estimate: the Zuozhuan places Zhuan Zhu’s assassination of King Liao in Duke Zhao 27, usually converted to 515 BCE; the biography does not date the palace drill, but the Hereditary House of Wu already calls Sun Wu “General” in Helü’s third year (512 BCE), so the drill came before that, at most about three years after the assassination. This is the editor’s inference, not a statement in the sources.

6. History and narrative: all speech comes from the sources listed above; the plain-language retelling is a contemporary editorial paraphrase. No weather, facial expression, inner thought or invented dialogue has been added. The comment on the first order (“The first time, the man from Qi blamed no one else …”), the king who did not come down and the two bodies, “both times he said no to the king,” “at Boju that idea won a great victory, and in Wu it became a rebellion,” “the farther the story traveled, the wider Sun Wu’s eyes grew,” the remark about the grave mound, and the epilogue are editorial links and comments, not claims made by the sources. The first-person voice of Sima Qian (“When I wrote the joint biography,” “I went back through the Zuo tradition,” “Sima Zhen, who wrote a commentary on this book of mine,” “Some seven or eight hundred years later”) is a literary narration of how the Shiji is arranged and of later records, not Sima Qian’s own words; the real Sima Qian could not have read Ye Shi, the Wu Yue chunqiu or the Yinqueshan slips.

7. Map: (1) Ying (present-day Jingzhou area, Hubei), linked to 506 BCE (Wu enters Ying after Boju); the coordinate is an OpenStreetMap reference point for Jingzhou city and marks only the area, not the exact site of the Chu capital at Jinancheng. (2) Yinqueshan, Linyi (present-day Linyi area, Shandong), linked to 1972 (the slips are excavated); the coordinate is an OpenStreetMap reference point for Linyi city. (3) Wu (present-day Suzhou area, Jiangsu): the palace drill is undated, so no time is linked. Shu, Yuzhang, Juchao, the Huai bank, Boju, the Qingfa, Yongshi and the tomb outside the Wu Gate are listed as unresolved places. 512 BCE (Helü’s third year, the capture of Shu and Sun Wu’s advice to stop) has a time but no mappable place.

8. Rights and adaptation: the ancient sources are in the public domain. Quotations from the Yinqueshan slips are limited to what is needed to identify the source. The Chinese and English texts are original contemporary narratives. This is an unpublished draft; no actual publication time is pre-filled.